1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method of communication between a vehicle and a control center, more specifically, a vehicle information-communication method for exchanging vehicle information of the vehicle; a vehicle information-communication system; a vehicle; and a control center.
2. Description of the Related Art
As disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent-Laid Open Publication No. 62-94443, a vehicular diagnostic system has been known. The vehicular diagnostic system is provided with a self-diagnostic device which diagnoses a failure in a vehicle. When a failure is detected by the self-diagnostic device, the diagnostic result is transmitted to a control center. The control center estimates a cause of the failure based on the obtained diagnostic result, and transmits countermeasures corresponding to the estimated cause of the failure to the vehicle.
In the above vehicular diagnostic system, the vehicle transmits the result of the self-diagnosis to the control center. A user of the vehicle then places the vehicle in an automobile dealer according to the countermeasures transmitted from the control center. In this case, when the vehicle is serviced at the automobile dealer, a failure diagnostic device may be connected to the vehicle, in order to investigate the cause of the failure in detail. When the failure diagnostic device is connected to the vehicle so as to investigate the cause of the failure, an artificially generated failure signal may be provided to the vehicle in order to investigate the cause of the failure. When such an artificially generated failure signal is provided to the vehicle, the vehicle may determine that a failure has occurred, using the self-diagnostic device, and transmit the result of the self-diagnosis to the control center. The result of the self-diagnosis thus transmitted is unnecessary information. Accordingly, communication costs and a load placed on a communication line due to the transmission of such unnecessary information should be suppressed.